Radium: Miracle. Medicine. Poison.Episode 12:17Free
The Brush They Were Told to Lick
Young women painted glowing watch dials with brushes sharpened between their lips, turning a precision technique into one of history's most consequential workplace exposures.
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Transcript
Before the mid to late 1920s, dial painters used lips to give brushes a fine point.
Dial painters were primarily women, and the industry developed a commercial market for luminous-dial watches.
One young worker demonstrated how the finest brush point was made. Lips, dip, paint—keep the point fine.
Before the mid-to-late 1920s, painters used their lips to sharpen brush points.
In 1913, Sabin von Sochocky mixed radium-226, zinc sulfide, and additives into fluorescent paint.
Radium's alpha particles excited zinc sulfide, creating a continuous light source.
The next year, he and George S. Willis founded Radium Luminous Materials Corporation.
During World War I, the industry supplied luminous dials and signs for ships and military aircraft.
The industry developed a commercial market for luminous-dial watches and other products.
Precision can feel like pride when danger has no visible shape.
In a study of 3,276 dial workers, 37.5 percent were teenagers when first hired.
Swallowed radium can enter the body and travel especially to the bones.
Radium-226 has a half-life of 1,622 years and poses a relatively large internal hazard.
Noah Dorsey took leave on June 30th, 1920, after six and a half years.
Noah Dorsey described himself as mentally and physically burned out after years of radium work.
In 1923, the first public report described jaw osteomyelitis in a young dial painter.
A Harvard report was written in 1924, then published in 1925.
It linked radium exposure with blood changes and jaw necrosis.
In June 1928, Grace Fryer and four other women reached the famous settlement.
Yet most dial painters received no compensation from the company.
Where it leaves off
But the glowing paint could enter their mouths only because radium had first conquered the world as a miracle.
Sources
- Radium dial workers: back to the future - PMCpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govsecondary
- The National Bureau of Standards and the Radium Dial Painters - PMCpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govsecondary
- US EPA REGION 6nrc.govprimary
- PUBLIC HEALTH GOALS FORoehha.ca.govprimary
- The Radium Girls at the National Archives – The Text Messagetext-message.blogs.archives.govsecondary
- Introduction - Radium: Topics in Chronicling America - Research Guides at Library of Congressguides.loc.govsecondary
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